Memories Alternate Ending
by beneaththewater
Summary: Kazutaka...Mommmy's looking for you..." Muraki's childhood was haunted by her.


**Title Author:** Memories—Alternate Ending by Sarrasi

**Email Address:** lilkilalaathotmaildotcom

**Content/Rating:** PG.

**Spoiler Warning:** Some hints about Muraki's past and the events of the Kyoto arc. Nothing hugely spoiler-ish though.

**Summary: **"Kazutaka…Mommy's looking for you…" Muraki's childhood was haunted by _her_.

**Distribution:** ww w.fanfictio n.n et/sarrasi, htt p:ww w.me diami ner.or g/us erin fo.p hp/103986#fics,ww w.livejou m/sarrasi. (Delete spaces)

**Notes:** The events of the manga only, so the anime rendition of Muraki's past dose not exist in this. I've entered this in the Anime North Fanfiction Contest, so the ending particularly was altered because:

1. I wanted this to fit into the series somewhat.

2. The ending didn't seem to have enough relevance in relation to the beginning.

Since I changed it so much, I decided to post both versions. As always, feedback is loved.

**Genre: **Drama.

* * *

Flickering candlelight filtered through the crack between the cabinet doors making the shadows of dead insects there leap to life and dance. Living, crawling things skirted away from the garish display, scrambling over his hands and bare feet, finding purchase in his hair and clothing. Yet, the child barely breathed, barely noticed.

Small hands clenched and unclenched in the dust, stirring it into the already musty suffocating air, the only outward sign of life he would permit until _it_ was gone.

The candlelight dimmed and the dancing slowed. There was a sharp click, then wisps of cool air pulled the dust into a new strange dance, invisible in the shadows and eerie in the light.

He closed his eyes to shield himself from the sight and covered his ears to ward off the sound of its quiet sobbing. He wished, just once, that the darkness would devour him; save him from the things that light threw into sharp relief.

_/She was there now. Standing in front of him, her slight frame silhouetted in the moonlight. So beautiful, so young and frail, barely more than a child herself in the eyes of the outside world; dressed in a gown of elegant white, the slight breeze from the open window caught her long dark hair. She turned and _smiled_, a smile devoid of madness as she opened her arms to embrace him—/_

The illusion shattered, like so many fragments of tainted glass and he shivered, pressing closer to the walls of his sanctuary.

_Silent and cold._

He thought, perhaps, she had gone.

"Kazutaka…Mommy's looking for you…" Her voice broke the silence, equally terrifying and empty as the space it filled. It was so much like…

/Go away./

"Come out…"

/Go away/ The thing out there was not his mother. It was NOT!

"Where are you hiding…My beautiful doll?" It sounded like her, her lilting dreamy voice called to him…Sang to him…

/GO AWAY/ Screamed for him…

"I've fixed her, Veronica…" It continued heedless of his silent cries, as if it knew he was in the room. He wondered, sometimes, if that would matter to it.

"Sensei helped…" She-no-_it_ giggled, as if recalling some secret rendezvous.

"He fixed me too you know…" He wondered if it might just be real; if it might just be her.

There was a rustling of cloth and the light was obscured suddenly. A delicate finger traced the crack between the doors.

He wanted to beat his fists against the walls. He wanted to know if it was her but didn't dare, he didn't want to know if it was something else.

"Mommy's all better now…"

The doors eased open. Kazutaka froze.

The smell of graveyard soil slowly permeated the air, if it rose from her or the bundle in her arms he didn't want to know.

The hand she extended to him now; pale as the dream gown, yet, darkened in places by rot and fresh earth, was accepted with a kind of wordless submission. He looked into the sunken eyes of what could only be his mother's corpse; a doll clutched in her other arm.

An unborn child.

_Veronica…_

He was pulled away from the memory, not by her hand, but by another voice.

"Appropriate, that I would find you in a place like this." Oriya murmured, and the memories slipped away like images from a dream. Muraki could tell even before he spoke how very annoyed he was. On another night he would have found it amusing and, knowing this, Oriya would kick him in the head and ask why he even bothered. Muraki would chuckle, understanding all too well the temptation posed by the proverbial box of matches."I wish you would have said something this time."

"I'm not coming back; there was no point."

Silence. Muraki waited, musing as he stared into the endless depths of space, only broken by small dots of twinkling starlight. _Or an illusion of it_, he thought, for light continued to travail through space even after its source was extinguished-

_Never to return..._

Or, perhaps, became a gaping hole of darkness that, no matter what deceptions surrounded it, only invited more of the same; destroying because it could not bleed, could not heal. Perhaps it didn't want to.

"I know now, that if you died..." He was dimly aware of Oriya's retreat, and his words carried by the wind. He could hear the restraint in them, close enough to touch but unable to reach, held back by his own force of will. "...I could still shed one tear for you." His outline seemed to waver and disappear into the fog."But you died a long time ago, Kazutaka."

Then he too, like a memory, disappeared into the fog, with the sickly sweet smell of tobacco and freshly turned earth.

That night, beside an unmarked grave, lay the broken body of a child's nutcracker doll.

End-


End file.
